OPCOMM Meeting Minutes – 31 March, 2009

Attendees: Mark Bussert, Gary Ashton, Elisa Barney Smith, Randy Wolff, Dorian Kiri, Steve Groothuis, Greg Gatlin, Joe Rekiere, Chris Gunning, Nader Rafla, Kristen Hopper
Agenda:
1.       Ideas & Suggestions from Region 6 meeting
2.       2009 Budget
3.       GOLD Chair Position
4.       Planned events for 2009
5.       PACE
6.       OPCOMM meeting notification list
7.       Email addresses on website
8.       Banquet survey results
Discussion: (Action items are in BOLD)
Ideas & Suggestions from Region 6 meeting. Randy and Elisa attended the 1½ day meeting in LA. It included a half day of officer training.
Ideas and suggestions they presented included:

1. Increase awareness of IEEE Xplore digital library. One idea is to get a section subscription and make it available for use by members. Not clear what the process would be for managing access or if this would comply with the terms of use for individual (non-corporate) subscriptions.
2. Present or promote “Expert Now” educational courses. (http://www.ieee.org/web/education/Expert_Now_IEEE/) We could purchase a short (~1 hour) course on some topic of broad interest and show it at a section (or maybe a PACE or GOLD) meeting.
3. Promote TryEngineering.org. This is an IEEE web site for students, parents, and educators about engineering and engineering careers. Joe: mention this resource in the next newsletter.
4. Improve recognition through awards. Give recognition to individuals and companies at our annual banquet. Examples: “Engineer of the Year”, “Senior Engineer of the Year”, recognize new senior members.
5. Highlight student engineering activities. There is a team of BSU engineering students working with NASA. Maybe they could give a presentation?
6. Hold a membership upgrade event. Member to Senior member (http://www.ieee.org/web/membership/senior-members/ ) ; student member to member. Section gets funds ($10/person) for each upgrade.  Nader: research what would be needed to set up an event.
7. Contribute information about our section to Region 6 history wiki.
8. Increase PACE activities. There was a lot of region funding for PACE left over last year and they are encouraging applications for funding this year. There is a June deadline.
9. Plan budgets early. Sections should plan their budgets early in the year and review them mid-year.
10. Start officer election cycle early. Nomination process should be started six months in advance of election to get new people involved and better visibility. National is developing an online voting tool. Mark: work with Kevin to get survey links set up on our section site.
11. Take advantage of training available to membership development chair. Example: making effective use of the SAMIeee database for membership retention and upgrades. Nader: contact Region 6 membership development chair (Zack Cohen.)
12. Recruit student members. Greg Gatlin will contact student branch.
13. Have an IEEE membership information table at campus career fairs and IEEE education events. Can we get one set up at WMED conference? We need current literature when events do come up. Nader: order current recruitment literature.
14. Participate in IEEE virtual communities. See https://www.ieeecommunities.org/ .
15. Retention in a down economy. IEEE discounts membership cost by 50% to members that lose their jobs. Joe: mention this in next newsletter.
16. Set up workshop on consulting. Possible PACE activity with help from Gary Blank?
17. Have new volunteers help organize events and bimonthly meetings.
18. Network with technical/entrepreneur organizations. Gary Ashton: contact Kickstand chair to discuss ideas for a joint meeting or social event.
19. Establish and maintain corporate liaisons. Mark: contact current company liaisons to find out who is still active and where we need replacements.
20. OPCOMM meeting notification list. Mark will add everyone on OPCOMM invitee list to IEEE Boise officers Google groups list.
21. Email addresses on website. Mark will work with Kevin to make sure these are current. He will also ask Kevin to put a link from the new web site to the new one and investigate how to get the second one to show up first in google searches.
22. Banquet Survey Results. We received 17 responses from ~50 attendees. Mark reviewed the feedback and responses to the “Future Topics?” and “What activities should we sponsor” questions.

2009 Budget:

Randy presented the draft budget and he’ll send out an update based on feedback he received. A couple items of note:
He will add a line item for section meetings. Idea is to have a section meeting/”Expert Now” training event/social, following an OpComm meeting.
Dorian: follow up with Steve on how to set up a student scholarship. If this looks viable, there may be a line item added for this in the budget.
Budget is set for two PACE events this year, maybe one with a local speaker and one with an out-of-town speaker.
Newsletter budget:

Most of it was spent with first two newsletters. We will change policy to only send printed newsletter to members that don’t have an email address. Nader: find out from SAMIeee how many members don’t have an email address.

GOLD Chair Position: Greg Gatlin volunteered (thanks Greg!) and we voted him in on a voice vote.

Planned events for 2009:

• We need to publish a calendar of upcoming events. Mark will work with Kevin to set up an events calendar on the web site. Gary Ashton will help fill it in.
• The Micromouse contest and student paper contest will be held at BSU on April 25th. Volunteer judges are needed. Mark will send out an email to the membership on this.
• Target May for a networking or social event.
• PACE. See notes under Region 6 meeting ideas and 2009 budget.